Forming SmackDown Live’s Roster of Tag Team Threesomes

If you’re looking for another leaked video of Xavier Woods, Paige and Brad Maddox, I apologize for the misdirect. No, this is about a different form of threesome: a tag team stable.

Surprisingly, there haven’t been as many trios in WWE history as one would think, considering the sheer amount of wrestlers who have come and gone throughout the years. We’ve had hundreds of duos and our fair share of bigger stables, but a definitive three-person unit only seems to pop up every once in a while.

Obviously, The New Day is on SmackDown following the Superstar Shake-Up, and recently, it’s been dawning on me how there’s potential to form several other stables to combat the rainbow unicorn stampede.

So as an exercise in getting this out of my brain instead of dwelling on it too much, I figured I’d toss out some ideas and see what all of you had in mind, too!

But first, let’s examine what we already have…

The New Day

Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods started out in some rocky waters. While some folk like myself were on board from the very beginning, many others in the WWE Universe just didn’t take a liking to the stable. For months, they struggled to get over, until turning heel changed the perception and before long, they became one of the most successful stables in WWE history.

Now, they’re the standard-bearers. Without even being on SmackDown yet, they’re the go-to No. 1 contenders who will undoubtedly spearhead the division. The reason why they haven’t done that already? Kofi Kingston is injured, and the unit is such a tight faction that their lack of a member has resulted in them sitting a few weeks out so they can a) keep the act in tact with everybody instead of being a watered down version, and b) allow the other teams on SmackDown to breathe a big before The New Day takes over.

Remember The Bollywood Boyz? Nope? Ah well, who cares, they’re The Singh Brothers now and they’re apparently buddies with Jinder Mahal, who in the span of a few weeks went from a total joke to a world title contender. Wrestling is insane.

I have zero faith Mahal is going to win that WWE Championship from Randy Orton, and when that inevitable loss happens, we already know who is being set up to wrestle for the title at the next pay-per-view, Money in the Bank: Rusev.

With Rusev fighting Randy Orton, that leaves Mahal with nothing to do unless in the meantime, The New Day make their return and we see a three-on-three feud start between those two factions. Frankly, despite not having seen more than five or six matches with Hurv and Garv Sihra…I mean…Samir and Sunil Singh…I’m totally down for this feud if it happens.

Natalya, Tamina and Carmella (with James Ellsworth)

Technically, this is a quartet, but who really counts James Ellsworth in any capacity? The only reason he’s there is because they haven’t cut ties between he and Carmella yet and there’s nothing else for him to do. He can be told to hit the curb tomorrow and it wouldn’t change the dynamic of this group whatsoever—and it would probably be the best thing for both Ellsworth and the ladies.

A few weeks back, if you had told me Natalya would lead a stable with Tamina and Carmella, I would have laughed and thought it was a dumb shot in the dark. However, here we are. All three women are second-generation stars and they appear to be targeting Charlotte Flair above all others—herself a second-generation star.

At first glance, I would have thought Charlotte would be in the group, if not leading it, but she’s drawn the ire of the trio, possibly out of a bizarre reflection. I don’t think this has a chance to last too long as there aren’t options of three women to face off against them, but however temporary it might be, it’s still a group of three superstars forming a bond together as a stable and worth mentioning.

THE FANTASY BOOKING ROUND

Here’s where we get speculative and let our imaginations run wild. The examples above are the only current sets of three performers on SmackDown, but there’s potential to create other pairings.

The Colons

This is by far the easiest of the bunch, as we have Primo and Epico already related to a former star that could potentially come back at any moment: Carlito.

Primo and Epico have seen some success when they were tag team champions alongside Rosa Mendes, but even then, they were in a division that sucked and just happened to get lucky. They’ve never really been all that impressive and their stints as Los Matadores and The Shining Stars have only hurt their credibility.

Primo and Carlito, though, were a solid tandem, able to stand on their own against great pairings like The Miz and John Morrison. Carlito has the mic skills that Primo and Epico are lacking and he could also be the centerpiece that draws the most attention, similar to how Xavier Woods has a commanding lead over Big E and Kofi Kingston on most promos even though there isn’t a clearly defined “main star” of the bunch.

Be thankful I didn’t force a “that’s cool” pun in here somewhere.

American Alpha + ?

When it comes to American Alpha, there were rumors we’d see them in some form of a stable with any sort of combination of Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler and the man that I would pick to be their leader (of sorts), Shelton Benjamin.

Above any other parallels, Jason Jordan and Chad Gable continually get referred to as the modern day equivalent of The World’s Greatest Tag Team. While Team Angle can’t exist with Kurt Angle on Raw, nothing is stopping WWE from bringing Shelton Benjamin back onto SmackDown like originally planned and having him fill that mentor role instead.

I was always high on Benjamin and thought he deserved more credit than he received. Where was that ECW Championship reign, for instance?! Having him back in WWE was something I was really looking forward to, so not only would this fulfill that idea, it would also inject a bit more personality into Gable and Jordan’s appearances. The two of them are already a great team, but they rarely get any time to speak and when they do, it’s a little bland. Shelton is a far cry from Roddy Piper or The Rock on the mic, but The Gold Standard moniker did give him more confidence than I’ve seen in either Jordan or Gable and maybe some of that could rub off on them.

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